Famine Talk COMMUNICATION STYLES AND SOCIO-POLITICAL AWARENESS IN 1990s NORTH KOREA

This paper examines the articulation of individual and collective social suffering through oral accounts of famine survivors hymn North Korea. The 19908 famine, resulting from both economic and political factors, was the first time North Korea experienced a significant internal threat to sovereignty: Restrictions on talk about famine, hunger and starvation were so commonplace that these words were barely in use. Print media educated the population in acceptable ways to discuss the food shortage and this was reinforced through threats and violence. Despite these threats, oral accounts reveal that some free communication emerged. Grounded in original ethnographic research with famine survivors living, in Seoul and Tokyo, the present paper explores these expressions and considers how individuals found a means of agency despite the regime's repression.